


Outlive Me

by emmbrancsxx0



Category: Supernatural
Genre: DeanCas - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, Endgame, Happy Ending, Human Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, POV Dean, POV Dean Winchester, Post-Endgame, i'm very very sad about today's announcement of spn ending, we deserve this kind of ending i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 08:25:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18205970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmbrancsxx0/pseuds/emmbrancsxx0
Summary: They would get old.  They were getting old.  Together.That was something.  That was lucky.





	Outlive Me

He chose humanity.

Sometimes, Dean still can’t believe it. It had been ten years since Castiel stood at the edge of the sandbox, with Dean leaning against the Impala less than a yard away, convinced that when Cas turned around, it would be to say goodbye for good. But then Naomi, with her feet in the sand, went up in a puff of white, smoky light and the sigil etched into the dirt blew away like wind in a desert sandstorm. And Castiel was still there.

He’d stood still for a few seconds, his chin tilted upwards and his eyes squinted at the sky, before breathing in deep through his nose and turning around.

“Where the hell did she go?” Dean asked, jerking upright, as Castiel walked towards him. He looked passed Cas’ shoulder at the empty sandbox. 

“Back to Heaven,” was the answer. 

Dean blanched. “Without you?” No. No, that wasn’t right. With the demons trapped in Hell, and all the monsters locked in Purgatory, the angels were leaving Earth; shutting down shop. It was over now. Heaven was closed for business.

And they’d just stranded Cas. 

“We gotta get her back here.” He felt panic thrumming through his gut, rising higher like a tide. “Maybe it’s not done yet. Maybe there’s still time to—.”

“ _Dean_ ,” Castiel said to stay him, and finally Dean looked at him. There was something in his expression—not quiet resignation. Something softer. Dean couldn’t pinpoint it. “I told her to leave me here.”

Dean’s jaw worked, but try as he might, he couldn’t get any coherent words to tumble out of his mouth. He settled on, “Huh?”

He’d thought Cas _wanted_ to return to Heaven—because of some duty or mission or whatever the crap. He’d thought Castiel wanted to leave again. From the second Cas had said he’d wanted to go the sandbox, and the whole drive over—just the two of them, because Dean needed to do this alone—Dean had a sinking in his gut that felt like a pile of rocks was weighing him down. It was a selfish feeling, and he forced himself to shove it down, to get used to it.

Cas wanted to go, and Dean didn’t have the right words to make him stay. And, if he did, he was too chicken shit to say them.

Cas wanted to go, and it was Dean’s own damn fault.

Castiel took in another long breath and looked to the side of Dean as if unable to meet his eyes. “The angels aren’t my responsibility now, Dean. I don’t belong in Heaven anymore. Maybe—,” he shook his head, a little ruefully but full of acceptance, “maybe I never did.”

And Dean wanted to call bullshit. The other angels were dicks, in Dean’s experience. Cas was the only one of them human beings had in mind when they placed their tree-toppers on Christmas.

He didn’t know why he was finding it so hard to remember any words whatsoever at the moment.

Then, Castiel nodded—just the once, but with certainty. “I belong here on Earth.” 

Dean didn’t know if he wanted to argue or agree.

“What—,” he managed to say, his voice a little brittle. “What’s gonna happen to you?”

“I’ll be cut off from Heaven. My Grace will fade over time.” He said it like he was discussing the weather, but Dean heard the weight of it underneath the tone. Dean remembered the first time Castiel’s mojo had drained away. So, he knew what Cas had decided to give up. He just couldn’t understand why.

“You’ll become human?”

Something had fluttered in Dean. Some kind of realization. Castiel was staying.

Cas met his eyes again, the blue in his irises intense. “Yes.” 

That selfish part of Dean that had been nagging at him all day reared its head again, but he couldn’t let Cas do this. He was an angel. He _wanted_ to be angel. This choice couldn’t be undone. 

Dean wanted to curse and yell and call him an idiot. “Cas, why the hell—?”

“I belong on Earth—with humanity and my family,” Castiel said again, interrupting Dean forcefully; and something about the way Cas was looking at him made him shut up and listen. “With you.”

Suddenly, Dean felt like he was swimming—weightless and silent and suspended.

In the end, Castiel had shrugged. He brought his hand up to the back of his neck and rubbed it nervously before letting it drop again. It was such a human gesture. “I mean . . . If you’ll have me.”

And what the hell kind of question was that?

Dean let himself be selfish—just the once. He felt a smile hook the corners of his lips. He reached for Castiel’s hand and brushed his fingers on his wrist. And he’d let himself have this.

Castiel was staying. Castiel was staying with _him_.

Fucking finally. 

“Yeah. Yeah, Cas. That sounds good.”

It had been ten years since that day at the sandbox. Dean’s knuckles had started to ache whenever it rained. The lines around his eyes had deepened, and some more cropped up on his forehead. He couldn’t drink without being laid up on the couch with a migraine the next day.

Castiel had gray in the hair around his temples. They’d bought him a pair of glasses to wear so he could read. Dean would often find him dozing off in the middle of day. Just a few weeks ago, they had to take him to the doctor when Castiel felt a pain in his chest. (It was just heartburn, which Dean was thankful for. But now Cas had to take a prescription for hypertension.)

And he got cold. A lot. 

Especially now, with the changing of the seasons. Outside their bedroom window, the once bright reds and oranges of the leaves were falling down and decaying on the wet soil. Birds squawked overhead as they flew south. The nights had been chilly for weeks, but the days were now following suit. All the tiny animals were burrowing into the dirt in preparation for their long sleep. The air was holding its breath, growing weary with the need for hibernation.

Dean had snuggled up next to Castiel, under a pile of blankets and pillows, as he did every night. Castiel’s hands were cold where they rested on Dean’s hip, and his feet even colder as they tangled with Dean’s. But he’d warmed up enough to fall asleep, and Dean kept holding him.

It was one of those nights, where everything felt too heavy, where Dean thought too much for his own good. He always tried to shake those creeping thoughts away, but it was hard to now, what with the world outside tumbling into decay and the moonbeams peeking through the window shining on Cas’ cheeks.

They’d had so many close calls in their lives. Dean was sure they’d bite it during some vamp attack or werewolf hunt or apocalypse. 

All in all, he never thought he’d make it to thirty, let along his fifties. He’d made peace with that. But he’d never made peace with dying of old age. He didn’t really know how to—to live until you die, to have a soft death in a hospital bed somewhere surrounded by friends and family. Even now, it didn’t feel possible.

He didn’t know whether to feel lucky or unlucky.

And then Cas shifted in sleep, and took in a breath.

Cas had chosen this. He’d chosen humanity. He chose to grow old and die like it was something to be coveted, and Dean wasn’t sure that it was. Even if he knew what came next, even if there was no uncertainty, he still sometimes wondered why Cas would give up Grace and immortality for this. For him.

But the selfish part of Dean was glad he did.

They would get old. They _were_ getting old. Together.

That was something. That was lucky.

Dean forced the thoughts from his head. He held Cas tighter, hoping to chase them away. It worked, for a while, right up until the point where Dean was drifting off to sleep. And then the thought hit him; it popped into his head, unwarranted and unconscious.

_Outlive me, please._

He didn’t even know he’d been thinking it, not really. It had been a feeling he couldn’t before place into words. But now they came so naturally, ebbing and swimming and circling in his mind until they became a repeated mantra.

He knew now that there would be no ending of the world—not in their lifetime, anyway. They’d caused it and prevented it enough to know that by now. The world would keep on truckin’. But they would have an end—him and Cas and Sam and Jack and everyone they loved. They would have an end.

A soft end. An end that Dean had never anticipated, never dared to hope for.

The notion of it caused his skin the prickle, and he felt swept up in the fleetingness of all things.

He didn’t know how to grow old. He didn’t know what to do with all this _time_. He didn’t know how to deal with it running out. And he thought, maybe, despite it all, it would scare the hell out of him at the end.

But the feeling of Castiel in his arms grounded him, and he thought he could be man enough to die for good if it was just like this. He could be brave in Cas’ arms, and he could build them an awesome, kickass Heaven for Castiel to come home to when the time was right.

He wouldn’t ever have to be without Cas.

It was a selfish thought. But Dean let himself be selfish.

Just this once.

_Please, outlive me._

But they still had time. They had years and years. The frost would melt and the spring would come again, and they’d see the change of the seasons for a long time to come.

And maybe, in all that time, Dean would find his peace in how lucky his life turned out.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this text post](http://ash818.tumblr.com/post/104827893042/imagine-your-otp-huddled-under-a-thick-down) on tumblr.
> 
> This has been in my drafts for about a year now and I thought it was a good time to post it in light of today's news. I'm very sad the show is ending next year. I don't have words to express how sad I am. But I love you, my SPNFamily. This show and all it has given me will always have a place in my heart which nothing else will ever occupy.
> 
> As Dean once said, "I'm proud of us." And I'm so proud of what we all built together.  
> Come cry with me [on tumblr](http://dochollidayed.tumblr.com/).


End file.
